Florence And The Machine And Gorillaz Chart New Hit Albums While Guns N' Roses Return To The Top 10

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 29: Florence Welch and her band, Florence + The Machine, perform on ABC's Good Morning America' at SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield, Central Park on June 29, 2018, in New York City. (Photo by Al Pereira/Getty Images)

While Florence and the Machine originally looked like they were on track to collect another No. 1 on the all-encompassing Billboard 200 albums chart when they first announced their new full-length High as Hope earlier this year, Drake swooped in and stole the show in a major way with his latest, Scorpion. The hip-hop superstar set a street date for the 25-track record less than a month ago, and it easily landed at the top of the listing with almost three-quarters of a million equivalent units moved in just its first frame.

While Florence Welch and her backing band might not have made it to the throne, they did start tantalizingly close, as High as Hope begins in the runner-up slot...though it wasn’t really a competition between the two new releases. The latest from the U.K.-based group kicks off with just 84,000 equivalent units, of which 74,000 are actual sales. High as Hope is Florence and the Machine’s third top 10 in the U.S. following 2011’s Ceremonials, which peaked at No. 6, and 2015’s How Big How Blue How Beautiful, which topped the Billboard 200.

The third and only other new entry inside the top 10 on the all-genre chart this frame comes from U.K. alternative band Gorillaz, which launches its latest effort The Now Now at No. 4. The group has now landed four top 10s in this country, with a pair of titles—2010’s Plastic Beach and 2017’s Humanz—stalling in second place, while 2005’s Demon Dayz peaked at No. 6. The Now Now opens with 63,000 equivalent units.

Hip-hop powerhouse Post Malone keeps new titles from occupying the entirety of the top three, as his first No. 1 record Beerbongs & Bentleys slips to third place, coming in just ahead of Gorillaz. Fellow hip-hop artists fill slots five through eight, with XXXTentacion’s ? slipping to No. 5, Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy landing at No. 6, Juice WRLD’s Goodbye & Good Riddance holding at No. 7 while The Carters’ (a super duo comprised of Jay-Z and Beyoncé) Everything Is Love dips to No. 8.

Rock outfit Panic! at the Disco see their new album Pray for the Wicked, which owned the ranking last frame, drops all the way from No. 1 to No. 9.

It might not be new to the top 10, but the final album inside the highest tier on the Billboard 200 hasn’t visited the area in many years. Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction is back inside the top 10 at No. 10 this week thanks to impressive sales of the decades-old title. Superfans rushed to pick up a newly-released remastered version of the former No. 1, and it was able to move another 33,000 units in the past tracking frame.

I am a freelance music journalist based in New York City. My byline has appeared in The Huffington Post, Billboard, Mashable, Noisey, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV, Fuse, and dozens of other magazines and blogs around the world. I love following charts and the biggest and mos...